Will white people go to a black museum?

I found myself wincing at this quote by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia), objecting to so-called “ethnic museums.”

Every indigenous immigrant community, particularly those brought here enslaved, have a story to tell and it should be told and part of our history. The problem is that much as we would like to think that all Americans are going to go to the African American Museum, I’m afraid it’s not going to happen. The Museum of American History is where all the white folks are going to go, and the American Indian Museum is where Indians are going to feel at home. And African Americans are going to go to their own museum. And Latinos are going to go their own museum. And that’s not what America is all about … It’s a matter of how we depict the American story and where do we stop? The next one will probably be Asian Americans. The next, God help us, will probably be Irish Americans.

I hear this sort of thing quite a bit, and I’m always puzzled by it.

First, the United States isn’t really the balkanized, fragmented nation that Doran seems to believe that it is. A friend of mine from Spain has often told me how impressed he is with how unified Americans are in contrast to what happens in other nations.

After all, we don’t have whole regions of the country trying set up independent republics. And fears that the United States is losing its identity to waves of non-English speaking foreigners have been around ever since large numbers of non-English speaking immigrants started arriving by boat more than a century ago. Current complaints are nothing new.

Second, for all of our tendencies toward xenophobia, we humans also tend to be drawn to what’s different and novel. The history of culture and ideas is always the history of mixing: Whether it’s music, food, visual art or philosophy, we’re always borrowing and cross-fertilizing. Cultural purity is a recipe for cultural death.

My sense, therefore, is that all kinds of people would want to visit a museum dedicated to African American culture and history, and not just so-called “white people” as Doran says.

But should African American history have its own museum? Shouldn’t it simpy be included in general American history?

The answer to both questions is yes.

African American history is sufficiently complex also to merit separate study in a museum (or in university history departments, for that matter). It is also so central to the general history of the United States that it should be included in a general U.S. history museum as well.

Author: Gary Panetta

2 thoughts on “Will white people go to a black museum?”

OK? Cultures must be mixed in order to have value. Minorities should be singled out and exalted. Spoken like a true “multiculturalist”, a mixed person trying to rationalize the racial/cultural supremacy of mixed people. Inverted thinking. What a load of bull crap.
Why is “African-American History” CENTRAL to American history? It’s not. Why would you say a smaller population of people would be CENTRAL? That doesn’t make sense.
You live in a fake world where a process of mixing and homogenization, consuming and eliminating other cultures and races is a good thing. that’s why you don’t understand the article.

“It’s not. Why would you say a smaller population of people would be CENTRAL?” Well, since you asked, the history of African Americans is indeed central to the history of the United States; and, to the world at large for that matter. Let’s look at each of these, but in reverse order. Let’s begin simply with the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Yes, I do know that Africans were not the first or only group of humans ever to be enslaved. Well aware, thank you. They were, however, the first and only group of human beings to then be dispursed and sold throughout more than 70% of the world. So, their labors and their cultures have had influence all over the globe. Now, let’s get back to precisely how African Americans are central to U.S. history. Take a look at the colonial national products from the early 1600s up through the early 19th centure: cotton, rice, tobacco and indigo. Now profitable would any one of these businesses been if all the labor necessary had actually been paid? And, how would America’s great wealth ever have come about without the enormous profits made from all of these businesses? Is it really so complicated that one cannot see how African Americans are central to American history? Please. And, might I add – lest anyone believe otherwise – am the descendant of Charleston, S.C. Low Country slave owners. My family history makes it very easy for me not only to see, but also help others, understand why African Americans are central to our nation’s history.